No Steph Curry, no problem as the Warriors end the Rockets’ season

As this series began and the Golden State Warriors ran the Houston Rockets out of Oracle Arena in Game 1 despite Stephen Curry missing the majority of the second half with that tweaked ankle, it seemed the Rockets were going to need to prove to the Warriors that Golden State should respect them. The Warriors had been through plenty with this Rockets team. The Warriors probably still had the echoes of “They ain’t even that good,” which was spoken by James Harden before a regular-season game last season, in their minds.

They probably still had the 4-1 Western Conference finals series playing through their thoughts of how they made Houston crumble at home in Game 3 before putting them away in Game 5 of that series. They probably still had Harden’s words that he felt he was the MVP of last season and not Curry dancing around their heads. And it was Jason Terry who gave the Warriors a guarantee the Rockets would win Game 5 and he would even be willing to get another Larry O’Brien trophy tattooed on his arm.

As the series mercifully ended with a Warriors 114-81 victory at Oracle Arena in Game 5, the Warriors probably didn’t look at this Rockets team with that respect.